A week without baby

Oh this is going to be a long week.  Yesterday Michelle’s mom came up and whisked Kira away to the country for almost a week.  We expect to get her back on Friday.  I already miss her.

Michelle has a very busy week this week with editing photos from multiple gigs, friends coming into town and going to see a big concert and who knows what else is on her list.  She’s busy.  So her mom’s doing us a favor by keeping Kira so Michelle can do everything she needs to do and I don’t have to take time off work or get bombarded by stuff when I get home.

Of couse this means that we can do whatever we want without fear of waking Kira up or that she will wake up in the middle of the night.  I stayed up till almost midnight last night playing a game without headphones.  It was awesome.

But I do miss her and it hasn’t even been 24 hours since she left (however it has been over 24 hours since I last saw her).  The way she smiles at me every day when I come home makes everything worthwhile.  *sigh*

Well, better make the best of it.  As I understand it, I believe the lawn has my name on it tonight.  *sigh*

On my own this Saturday

Michelle has a wedding to shoot on Saturday so Kira’s health and well-being are in my hands for pretty much the whole day I expect.  Poor kid.

Da-da has been getting schooled in the new feeding which is completely different than the old feeding.  Now that Kira eats mostly the same food we do (with the exception of formula) her meals have become somewhat easier since she feeds herself most of the time but harder for Michelle because she has to pre-prepare foods in advance a lot of times.  Of course the threat of allergies to soy and milk are making that interesting but Michelle is doing an excellent job at figuring it all out.

I’m always a little apprehensive when I get to take care of Kira on my own with no help because I spend so little time with her comparatively.  But I don’t dread it at all because I get her all to myself during those times and I really do enjoy it.  There’s no way I could have figured out all the things that need to be done and am thankful that Michelle is there to show me what needs to be done ahead of time.

Kira is closing in on eleven months of age and she’s doing great.  She chatters like crazy and is close to mastering the ability to walk on her own.  She’s up to about seven or eight unassisted steps at this point without holding on to anything.  She also generally carrying a stuffed monkey half her size and stopping to squat down and pick up a pacifier along the way.

Usually when she sees one of the cats she starts saying “kih kih kih” over and over while she watches or reaches for them.  Last night she saw the orange cat come around the corner and said out loud “kih tuh” which amazed me.  We call all the cats ‘kitteh’ because we are like that and we can’t help it.  So her saying “kih tuh” was not just close – it was spot-on.  She’s a smart one.

The world we live in and life in general

So much happens on a day to day basis to me and everyone else that there is no possible way to for everyone to keep everyone posted on the goings-ons and what-nots of their lives at all times.  It’s just not possible.  So we share small samplings of our lives on bliggity blogs and our face-spaces and we move on.  Years ago we didn’t even do that much.

Kira and Michelle have both been sick for a little over a week now.  So far, I have been very lucky to not yet get sick.  The wife went through antibiotics and had no result so more than likely she has viral bronchitis just like our poor baby girl.  Kira has to breath in medicine in vapor form from a mask hooked to a loud machine.  She was basically tolerant of the experience at first but I think her patience is getting thin for that routine.  Not sure how much longer she needs that treatment but hopefully not too long.  She seems to be a bit better.

Kira continues to amaze me with her progress and ability.  Michelle continues to amaze me in taking care of Kira every day and the house and everything else.  I know she thinks I don’t appreciate her and the hard work she does every day but I do.  I really do.  I am very proud of both of them.  I really don’t think that Kira would be so well adjusted and amazingly advanced if it weren’t for Michelle being with her every day and working with her and taking care of her.

We have been getting the run-around with Graebel… again.  You may remember we had issues with them back in October of last year.  Well, to one extent or another we have had continual issues since then as well.  Now for the past few months we have been dealing with trying to get our insured items covered and repaired.  Some things have worked out and many things haven’t but nothing has gone smoothly.  You can read up on the current problems over at the wife’s site.  I have given up dealing with them and turned them over to her to deal with.  I’m betting they are now wishing that they would have just worked things out with me.  If we ever decide to move to a new city again with my current employer I will do everything I can to NOT use Graebel for that or any other move.

I’ve been busy working on a few different projects at work.  I’m working on getting some new security software rolled out to all of our computers (actually our Altiris guy is doing all the work) and I’m in the final stages of getting ready for a big office integration in New York City.  I do not look forward to being away from the wife and our little girl while working on that project and I’m sure Michelle isn’t looking forward to it either.  But I don’t have to travel too often and I’m still employed so I do what I have to do.

We were planning on migrating from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to the new Exchange 2007 and I’ve been working on the testing and planning of that for a few months.  However, now that Microsoft is releasing the next version (2010) earlier than expected, and faster than any other major revision cycle in history for that product, we are now on hold.  The idea is that we will now skip Exchange 2007 and go directly to 2010.  OK cool.  We can do that.

I have been working on some new comics for A Little Scary in my “spare” time but I missed my re-launch date of June 1st already.  I’m hoping to get a couple done soon.  Here’s hoping.  I don’t want to start up again without at least a small buffer or I’ll just end up getting discouraged again when a deadline comes and goes with no update.

Bonus points if you can tell me where I got the title of this post.

Subtle but still strange

I know not everyone believes in the supernatural or ghosts or things of that nature.  I do.  I’ve grown up with it all my life in one way or another.  If you are a potential employer reading this it should have no bearing on me.  Believing that there are unexplainable forces in the world is no different than another person saying that they believe in Jesus or another saying that they believe in Darwin (just go with me here).

Obviously whatever is in this new house of ours is fascinated with electronics.  We’ve lost and had returned a flash drive, a portable USB backup drive and a Nikon flash.  Bit of a trend going on there.

So today either continues that trend or Kira is a flippin’ savant at less than six months of age.

I haven’t touched my computer since we got back from a wet session of garage sales in the rain.  The only one who has was Kira banging on my keyboard while I held her in my lap.  I just came back to my computer about an hour later and this is what I find on my screen:

At first I thought “Oh I know Calc was the active program while Kira was playing with the keyboard.  She must have hit a bunch of numbers.”  Then I started thinking, she can’t really reach the top of the keyboard to hit numbers.  Then I took a closer look and thought – “Is that what I think it is?”

Sure enough, I did a Google search and that my friends is the numerical value of Pi to what looks like 32 decimal places.  Uh… OK.  So of course I went to the other room and asked Muse if she’d been on my computer at all and of course the answer was ‘No’.

So I thought, well…  maybe somehow Kira just accidentally typed in a fraction that some how calculated to Pi.  It doesn’t seem like that is possible though.  According to that Wikipedia article, the trick with Pi is that it can’t be expressed as a fraction.  I didn’t know that.

So did Kira type it out?  No I don’t think so.  She was on my lap and couldn’t reach the number row.  Besides she was busy barfing on my mouse.  Did the cats tap dance it on the keyboard?  They’ve been given credit for some pretty unbelieveable computer feats, but no, I don’t think this is possible.

So if I didn’t do it and Muse didn’t do it… then who did?  And why Pi?  I guess because whoever or whatever did it knew I would figure it out.  I dunno.

Sure there will be people out there reading this who will just scoff and not believe a word of what I’ve typed and frankly I don’t blame them.  I’d find it pretty hard to believe if it hadn’t happened to me.  So take it for what you will.

Neglect

Is there anyone still visiting?  I wouldn’t be if I were you.  I’ve neglected everything that I didn’t absolutely have to do for a while now.  I guess a new baby will do that to you.

Obviously, I haven’t been updating here.  I haven’t been updating anywhere.  I post a little tidbit on Plurk or Twitter or Facebook now and then but really it’s no more than fluff.  Worse yet, I haven’t been updating A Little Scary at all.  It’s been over a month without a new comic.  It makes me sad.  Especially when I was doing so good for so long with staying on schedule.  My car just went 7,500 before it finally got its first oil change.

I haven’t read any of my friends blogs in months.  I’m out of touch in many ways.  I need to call people although to be fair most of my friends haven’t called me either.  I haven’t kept up on the web comics I used to read on a regular basis.  I haven’t finished any of the little projects at home.  There’s been no video game playing or drawing.

So what have I been doing?  Well, I get up a little after 6am each day and shower and get ready for work.  I eat a bowl of cereal while I feed the dogs and then I leave around 7:30am.  I’m in my office around 8:15 to 8:30am depending on traffic.  I work all day trying to figure out how to upgrade our entire e-mail system globally.  I leave between 5:25 to 5:55pm and head home.  I usually get home around 6:20pm where I hear what happened during the day.  Then I go unload my pockets and remove my overshirt and shoes.  Wash my hands – maybe poop first – and then go grab the baby for my shift with her.  I get her last feeding of the day and attempt to put her to sleep.  She’s usually in her crib around 11pm.  Then I may check my e-mail or some downloads that I’ll never realistically get to work with and then I go to bed.

Now for the past few days that schedule at night has been in a bit of flux.  Muse is trying some new things with her feedings and sleep times to try and get her to bed earlier.  But for the most part it’s been what I wrote.  Sure every once in a while we may bundle the baby up and go out to eat but that’s pretty infrequent.

I need a vacation.  I know my wife does too.  We both desperately need one.  This isn’t what I thought parenthood would be like.  Many of the problems I wrote about previously have started to subside so it is much more tolerable.  We are getting more sleep now.  But I’m still drained.  I’m still tired all the time.  We are both showing signs of depression.

I want to be creative and draw or work on my comics.  I want to play games for hours on end.  I want to see friends and go out and do things.  But I can’t.  Not really.  I could make an exception now or then but everything has a consequence.

I’m not sure what I expected parenthood to be like but it wasn’t like this.  I’m not regretting the decisions so don’t get me wrong.  And I am grateful for getting the chance to be the Daddy of a very special little girl.  But I miss being me.  Doing the things I want to do on my own schedule.  I knew our lives would change but I guess I was still being naive (screw you oomlats).

The sacrifice is worth it I suppose.  Nothing makes me happier than to see that baby girl smile at me.  That is its own reward.  I just need to figure out how to modify my life to include myself in it every now and then.

It should be known

Some of you saw my last post when I originally posted it.  Before I went back in on my iPhone in the middle of a meeting and marked it as Private instead.  Some of you knew then what was going on in our lives or at least my life.  Then I chickened out.  I decided that the post was too personal and that the words proved that I was a bad parent.  The words and emotions I couldn’t express to my wife in words but can in writing were too much to be held responsible for.

Now the post is back up for everyone to read.

After talking to quite a few people it seems that the feelings I’ve had are quite common.  Pretty much everyone in a similar age range to me (and many not) have experienced the same or worse.  Others have gone through this (obviously) and lived to tell the tale.  Except they don’t tell the tale.  They never tell people how they really feel about parenting a newborn with problems.  They don’t tell a soul because they, like me, felt it would prove they were a bad parent.

But in talking to others it gives them a sort of freedom to tell us that yes, parenting for the first few months (or more depending on the persons) sucks ass.  It’s a miserable, thankless job that people without ever having raised a baby will ever understand.  And it’s apparently something that people feel the need to hide from the next wave or generation of potential parents.  Whether to hide what they feel are weaknesses or from fear of people who don’t understand.

I say to hell with that.  It should be known what it is like to care for a baby.  The reality.

That is why I reposted my previous post.  I’m not going back and editing it.  I’m not even going to re-read it.  What I wrote was a release for me and to change it would be counter-productive.  There is therapy in writing.  There is a catharsis in venting the emotions that I can never seem to properly verbalize.  I felt better after writing that post and marking it private took away from that therapy in some small way.

When Muse and I went through the birthing classes, the nurses who taught the class stressed over and over that you should never shake your child.  They said over and over again that if you get angry that you should put the baby down in a safe place and walk away and call for help.  They preached over and again about the damage that can be done to an infant when shaken violently.  And the wife and I would look at each other and roll our eyes.  We wondered what kind of horrible people could even think of doing something so monstrous?  What kind of pathetic lowlifes would do that to a baby?

Now we understand.  We have not shaken the baby (don’t go calling DFS) but we now have a better understanding of WHY some people are driven to do something like that.  The rage I have felt at something so small and defenseless is a heartbreaking thing that makes me feel like the biggest sack of shit in the universe.  But at least now I know we’re not alone.

I’ve been dealing with the baby much better since those days.  She’s going on seven weeks now and neither of us has done anything more physical than burp her more vigorously than we probably should.  We are still learning to cope but I have to be honest: It’s hard.  It’s really fucking hard.

One thing we’ve both learned is that the less sleep we get, the less stress we can take.  We’ve both experienced it on multiple occasions.  And the crappy thing about it is that sleep is the hardest thing to achieve with a baby in the house.  Sure with two parents it’s possible to take shifts but when I have to go to work and make money to pay for all the bills and formula and diapers that leaves my wife alone to deal with the baby for yet another shift.  I try and take over for her at night but if I don’t get sleep then I’m absolutely useless at work after a while.  If I lose my job then we can’t afford to live much less have a baby.

So how do single parents do it?  I can’t even begin to imagine that.

My point here is not to whine and complain and fish for sympathy comments.  I turned off comments on the previous post because I didn’t want input or sympathy.  That wasn’t the point.  It was therapy.  My point is to let other new parents or people expecting to be new parents soon know that parenting is harder than you think.  It’s much harder than your friends and family have let on.  They think they are doing you or maybe themselves a favor by not telling you the gory details but they aren’t.

I would have been much better off hearing the horror stories from people before I had to experience them first-hand.  I would have known going into those angry moments that I wasn’t alone and that it was perfectly normal.  I would have much rather known ahead of time what to expect.  So that is why I’m writing this post.  Not just for therapy for myself but as a caution to new parents.

Parenting is hard.  Taking care of a baby is unbelievably hard.  You will lose sleep.  You will miss meals.  You will become a recluse in your own home and despise the walls around you.  You will fight with your spouse over the stupidest shit.  And most importantly, you will get angry at your baby – and you will feel like the world’s biggest loser for doing so.  You will get through it.  But never – ever – expect it to be easy.

It should be known that you are not the only one who has felt that way.
That’s the point of my writing.

Where do I begin?

Has it really been a month since I posted last?  It seems like only a week or so ago.  Wow….

My wife has released some info on her site so I will continue here.  Our little girl was born at 8:20pm on November 8th, 2008.  She was 7 pounds and 3 ounces and 20 inches long.  Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, a nose and a mouth that can reproduce the legendary screams of the deadly Irish banshees.

So much has happened in the past month and then again when I think about it… so little has happened to.  Our lives have completely changed just like people told us that they would but I think I misunderstood.  I took those casual mentions of life changes as anecdotal and that those changes would be a little challenging but overall they would be good.  I think those people are laughing now.

What I should have taken them as were the dire warnings that the soulless husks of parents that were speaking to me meant them to be.  How was I to know?  Having a baby isn’t just challenging.  It’s hard.  I think of all the shitty people out there who have kids (but shouldn’t) and they survive.  But I think we’re just barely skating by on the edge of sanity in our house.

Yeah we have a baby and she is beautiful.  I wouldn’t change that for the world.  But she also seems to be defective in many ways.  Not in the physically retarded category luckily but there is something seriously wrong with her and I wouldn’t be completely against floating the idea of putting her up for adoption.  Yeah I know that makes me a bad parent.  You just deal with whatever happens and that’s that.  Bullshit.

I’ve tried taking everything in stride and being calm and being the one to try and make sense of everything and not panicking at every little thing.  And you know what it has gotten me?  Bitterness from my wife and more screaming from the baby.  She’s still in pain, nothing we try helps.  And I’m not sure how much more I can take.  Neither me or the wife have slept properly in month.  Oh that’s normal, get used to it.  Fuck you.  Most babies sleep most of the time and wake up long enough to eat and shit before drifting off to blissful sleep again.  Our girl has bags under her eyes that are as pronounced as ours because she’s so gassy that she can’t sleep.

The doctor is useless. Changing from normal formula to soy seems to have caused an allergic reaction that I’m told could have caused her through to clamp shut so she can’t breathe.  Oh, no big deal says the advice of a doctor.  If that happens just take her to the emergency room.  OK, perhaps the advice should be to fucking camp out in the emergency room for the next week because if that were to happen, there is no hospital close enough to drive to save a baby that can’t breathe.  It’s impossible.  But gee, thanks for the advice.  So now she’s on a special hypo-allergenic formula that costs even more money.  Guess what?  She’s still gassy.  Yay.

After a particularly tense night a few weeks ago I spent some time in the nursery sitting next to the crib and crying and telling her everything was going to be all right and that I would do anything to keep her safe and healthy.  Now I can’t stop myself from thinking horrible things about her when she keeps screaming for no visible reasons.  I get angry at her for screaming and pushing away her bottle and spitting out her pacifier and kicking her legs when I try and change her crap filled diaper.  I always thought I would be a good Dad.  Now I’m not so sure.  I hate myself for the things I think and the way I feel and I just want things to stop.

Things are finally getting to me and my mellow, easy-going personality is shattering and the bitter, hateful, angry person that always lurks just below the surface of my skin is starting to break through.  I hate that person.  I hate him so much.  I don’t think I should be anybody’s Dad.  I feel like an asshole for even thinking such a thing.  Probably because I am one.

It’s a girl!

Mom and baby girl are fine.  Delivered by C-Section at 8:20pm on Saturday November 8th, 2008.  She was 7 pounds 3 ounces and 20 inches long.  All are recovering fine.